Documents To Go for Android Tackles Quickoffice with Big App Update

DataViz is looking to gain ground vs. Google and Microsoft with a new edition of Documents To Do for Android that adds free document editing, along with in-app purchase options that include connectivity to multiple storage accounts.

With Documents to Go 4 for Android, released on Tuesday, DataViz will continue to offer “Free” and “Full” versions. In the Free version, which was previously view-only, users are now able to create and edit documents, capabilities only offered in the Full edition before.

The new in-app purchase options include desktop file sync, access to password-protected files, and connectivity to Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and SkyDrive.

“Some individual components can [now] be purchased individually (i.e. cloud options and desktop sync), but there will still be an option to purchase the full package of features all at once,” said Jason Coup, a company spokesperson, in an email to TabletPCRevew. The Full version of Docs to Go 4 is priced at $9.95.

Docs To Go vs. Quickoffice & Office Mobile

Connectivity to multiple storage accounts is the key differentiator between Docs To Go and its main rivals, Quickoffice and Office Mobile, Coup contended.

For expanded vews of the screenshots at right, please click on the images.

Google and Microsoft are “using their office suite as a hook to sell/promote a different service (SkyDrive and an Office 365 subscription for Microsoft, Google Drive and Google Apps for Google). We don’t want people to have to hitch themselves to one wagon,” according to Coup.

“We’ve been building mobile office suites longer than either of those competitors. We started in the late 90s making Documents to Go for Palm OS.

“So we have a great deal of experience in this space. And with the updated UI (user interface) in the new version, we feel Documents To Go is almost the most user-friendly option.”

Quickoffice and Office Mobile also offer document creation and editing. Quickoffice is a free app. Office Mobile requires an Office 365 subscription, and it’s designed to run on smartphones only. Last fall, Microsoft promised new native editions of Microsoft Office for iOS and Android, but nothing has emerged so far.

More App Updates on the Way

The free edition of Docs to Go also supports PDF viewing, as does Quickoffice.

For iOS, DataViz offers two flavors of Docs to Go: the free Standard edition, along with a Premium edition, priced at $16.99. The Standard edition supports document creation and editing, but you need to purchase Premium in order to get access to Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and SkyDrive. SugarSync is another cloud storage option with the Premium edition of the iOS app.

Coup told TPCR that Docs To Go 4 is the first of several updates planned for the Android app.

“We’re still trying to determine the full feature set for those updates. Expanding our support for PDF files is on that list, but I don’t know if/when we’ll be adding anything,” he elaborated.